Prometheus
by plagoo
Summary: Azula is caged, no one visits, no one cares - except one girl and with the help, she'll gain her freedom again.  story previously called 'long way down'
1. Walls

**A/N** This could be a drabble, or it could end up being a full blown FF depending on what you guys (the reviewers) think of it/how interested you are in it!

I dont own ATLA.

**Word count: **1,200

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><p>There was some sort of eeriness about the walls that creeped her out. For hours she'd been nothing but half curled in a protective position. Clutching desperately beneath rusted shackles at her sides and pinning her eyes shut.<p>

_They are closing in on me_, she thought_. They are trying to suffocate me, fall on me, and destroy me. And I cant escape._

And as if the fire nations poised poster child, the perfect azure flower had never even towered, she'd felt for the first time a very vivid fear. And wilted with it, petals spiraling to the damp stone floor.

If she was an onlooker, some curious guard watching. Or maybe even herself looking in she would've laughed at the ridiculousness and irony of it all. Irony because she hadn't feared failure. Failure was just another obstacle, another test of her strength. She hadn't even feared _death. _Death for her country, for her father in battle was honorable. But suddenly these walls. Dainty surrounding walls of the jail cell struck her with so much fear that she couldn't even move to hide her face in the shadows of the crooked corners.

It was pathetic. This she knew. Cowering like a newborn rabbit rat. But fear was an overwhelming emotion. A drive. And it drowned out all else. Her father had taught her to never feel it, but it was instinct, a precaution. Something nobody could take.

And her days sped on like this. She was hardly lucid enough to be aware - she figured she'd been drugged during her first meal. She hadn't been completely crazy or stupid enough to overlook that. But she was too tired, to slumped, to really let it matter anymore. It wasn't like anyone would particularly care if she starved to death.

_Especially_ not Fire lord Zuzu.

For the first month he'd been too busy to visit. No doubt handling the various nations demands on repairs and damages caused during the war. Demanding some sort of compensation for the amount of casualties and playing the sympathy chord for those who lost things in the war. And if that failed, threatening to bite the nipple of peace. The night Ozai had been defeated, and Ba sing se taken back was the night they'd more than likely lost their force. The fire nation was nothing now but sniveling puny soldiers. More importantly "all talk and no game" the Avatar had taken their credibility, and with that fear, _and with that_, respect.

This is why Azula would have just burned them all to the ground if it had been her sitting on the throne. She would have kept true to her country, her people, and her father. It was simply in their blood to be superior. Evident by their gold eyes - gold representing regality, strength, and honor. But Zuko could never grasp that. Her father was right to snuff out his weakness and exile him. Azula knew she had been dong wrong during the war. At least to a outsiders perspective. She could see how soldiers treated people, prisoners, but it was all for good reason. To protect their home land. To plant fear, and have that blossom into realization of weakness, of lack of control. To have the fire nation burn bright and prosperous. If that meant wiping out everything else, that was a price. A cheap one, but still the only price to pay. To ensure their immortality. If they weren't the bad guys, _someone was bound to be_. Suddenly she wished Ozai had done far more than just burning half of her brother's face. In these brief moments of lucidity, Azula remembered _blue fire. And that she breathed it._

Any guard who'd come to close, or anyone who tried to talk to her had suffered. It was a known fact within a few days that even drugged, Azula valued her privacy. Back when she'd first been chained Zuko had told her she was lucky he was letting her keep her fire bending. And that Ozai's had been taken from him by the Avatar. She'd felt disgusted that Zuko was able to play god like that through Aang. If she'd found the Avatar, and not the peasant water tribe girl and her insufferable brother, or somehow gotten him on their side would she have been able to use him as a card like that? But Azula had felt even more disturbed by Zuko's mercy. Mercy was weakness. Mercy had gotten him hit with lightening, and mercy had put her in this god forsaken jail cell where these damn walls were always attacking her.

_Mocking her._

Azula hated him, and his compassion more than anything. She would prefer death, she decided, to this. But burning the guards, or spitting fire at them, or scaring them shitless had made her feel better if only slightly. Vaguely, she was still impressed with the control, the level of fear she held over people. Even in rags and chains. It meant that beyond these walls she still had followers.

It was only a matter of when, really. And if she'd been sane enough she would've hatched out a plan. She was infamous for them after all. She was a perfect strategist, a skilled aristocrat. The hatched little prodigious blue dragon of the great Fire nation that could not fail.

In theory anyway.

But Zuzu was smarter than she liked to admit. And besides, immediate escape would do her no good. She would be snuffed out too soon. Too many hours would be devoted to her little manhunt. She should wait until she was forgotten here. Long assumed buried and never sticking her head above ground again. It was smarter to do, and then strike a surprise assault.

_Look before you leap for snakes among sweet flowers do creep_, she'd read somewhere. But that's what she kept telling herself at first, and then she could suddenly hardly remember what it was she was waiting _for._

And sometimes, she couldn't remember who she was, or where she was, or why these people were asking her these weird irrelevant questions. How are you feeling today? Anything you want to talk about? What does this inkblot tell you?

It was somewhere in the long months, somewhere along the way someone had come to visit her little shit-stain confinement on the map. There was a lot of babbling, a lot of questions, and a lot of returned silence. But the person had been absolutely relentless in their prodding. Azula had gotten so fed up with it; even with her lack of reason and sanity told the person to go fly a kite or something and that if they didn't go away she was going to boil herself in the toilet. That had gotten a laugh. A familiar upbeat giggle and the stranger had agreed, waved, and promised to be back perhaps soon.

Azula didn't care. She couldn't care. And she hadn't been able to particularly place a face either. Something had been entirely wrong about the person who came. And that's all she knew before she slumped back into her loopy heavy stupor and tried to hide from the walls. Curled up like a animal.


	2. Spiders

**A/N: **A little shorter than the one before but writing for me right now is a little slow and gosh, I despise fillers but they exist for a reason. Sorry about the wait! Between finals come up and work Ive had zelch inspiration. And if I do I have to waste it all on a 6,000 word essay.

I want to thank you all for the reviews, remember to keep hitting that button and sending me your thoughts!

**Word count**: 1,081

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><p>Springing from the damp cool cell she could have swore she saw <em>spiders.<em>

Not spider-scorpions or spider-wolves but just spiders. They crawled all over her food when she wanted to eat. They attached to her legs and looked at her through a vast amount of eyes. They waited in the corners for her to let her guard down and wrap her in their webs. And they always succeeded. She wasn't as scared of the spiders as she was the walls but she certainly hesitated to look at them. And never ate her food or drank her water if they touched it. With little hairy legs they tainted whatever they crossed and she was afraid if she touched it she'd be tainted too. As if reaching out and laying her palm against a small ration of bread would sicken her, weaken her, until she evaporated into the stone floor like them.

Because of these hallucinations she'd spent three whole days starving and slowly lucid. And Azula lucid was never a good thing especially for the guards. She'd managed to burn through armor the first time she opened her eyes and realized where she was. The second time she'd managed to send a guard off into a tantrum and then get said guard dismissed, tears streaming down her cheeks, because of her foul mouth. Azula may have been dulled at one point but she could always return to being sharp at the edges. It wasn't in her genes to be a circle. Curvy and swayable. She was a square, sharp and angled, and stubborn.

But eventually three days lucid spiraled off into food being coerced down her throat by guards. Heavily drugged food and whatever progress she had made in that short time – whatever plans she had come up - with were forgotten and buried beneath a thick foggy haze.

But she knew someone visited her again. In the blurry borderlines of hallucination and reality they stood on that thin line, teetering back and forth on pointed boot heels. She couldn't tell if they were mocking her, or whispering terms of endearment. She just knew they were there. Disturbing her silence – keeping her company, annoying her, _comforting _her. And although Azula had never been the sentimental type (she liked to think she was driven by conviction and ambitions and never emotion) she reached out blindly and shakily for them once. The rings on her wrist clittering and jangling and preventing the full reach of nimble arms. They fell back to her sides as weakly as they'd called out. And Azula realized that she couldn't remember why'd she'd done it in the first place

Was it to burn them, to beckon them, to _touch them? _But it was only once, and never more. So she forgot.

But they returned a lot more frequently than before. They wouldn't let it past, they wouldn't let her forget. Annoyed, Azula once strained past messy muddled hair obscuring a face frame to regard them with gold eyes but she couldn't see past shadows – and after one failure she decided to perhaps never look again. Looking, and finding out, meant that she would have to fight them. It would mean the bitterness would have to rise and although it was a part of her under normal circumstance when she was in prison she didn't want to feel anything, but she did after a while, and she mostly felt fear, and sorrow. And she didn't know if she could handle any more of these emotions. She didn't know if she would break with it or hold fast. The first seeds of doubt planted with that stranger and with their coaxing and visiting bloomed into lack of self-confidence. When she heard their familiar voice again– no longer distinguishing or concerned if it was real or not – she hid and brought her knee's to chest, face covered by thinning legs and long fingers covering her ears.

And finally said stranger sneaked past the bars of her cage and touched her shoulder. Her first reaction was to cower. And like a dragon backed into a corner she blew flames. A frenzied defense mechanism, her aim was horrid and veered off to the right. Small flames flying like spittle from her lips. Lighting up the cell in a onslaught of blue fire. Shadows ceased to exist, and she saw flashes of her torturer – of her friend flicker for a brief second before she screwed her eyes shut. Azula only knew she succeeded when she heard a muddled screech and the echoes of a hasty recoil, and abruptly she ran out of fuel and sputtered like a broken bulb and went out. The cell was shrouded in darkness again

And for a while, utterly silent besides the small amounts of heaving and heavy breath that betray salty sobs but Azula couldn't tell if it was hers or her visitors.

She didn't have long to wonder before the cage was suddenly crowded with guards, hustling the person out and tending to her and at the same time slamming the former Princess into the dirty ground and reprimanding her. She struggled at first, frightened they were here like the spiders to taint her. But after they slipped something, no jammed it, into her bottom her energy ran short and she went limp.

"DON'T HURT HER. ZUKO SAID YOU _CANT _HURT HER."

Someone screeched, fading, and fading, until she was in nothing but black.

But when she woke up, she was clean and where she had fallen. A new set of clothes hung loosely from her frame. She fingered the fabric of the shirt, running calloused tips over the smooth texture like a child would in amazement. Slow moments of recognition between the valley of her breast and around her abdomen brought notes that even beneath her cracked fingernails there was not a stray speck of dirt. But it was only after all of this other curiosity was sated that she noticed a new shiny muzzle wrapped around her head and knotted in the back with a strip of hide, and poorly, she could feel the dull throb of a headache and the weight forcing her neck to sink. And lifting her fingers to touch the restraint in horror she realized it was fashioned out of _metal._

_And that the spiders rested in the clumps and volume and creases of her hair and mask._

She only cried when the therapist saw her not a hour later.


	3. Shampoo

Oh hey guys! If you watch the news, did you see those riots in Minnesota at the mall of America?_ I was there. This is a little short, but, things are getting back into motion. _

_p.s I suck at updating on regular intervals, uh._

**_Word count: 986_**

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><p>Days, or maybe it was hours.<p>

She'd spent fumbling at the edges of the blunt muzzle, she often cried when alone in her cell. Often woke up soggy and paranoid. And after that first time she'd slipped up with her doctor she'd never done it again. Pride (or maybe years of practice pretending these emotions didn't exist, that they didn't gather in her chest -) allowed her to just sit as a stony, emotionless, slate. It crossed her mind she'd never be able to smile again. She'd never be able to speak, never be able to throw out another witticism beyond a blubbering mutter and yet she still sat mute. Defiant with her silence, the only thing she had left.

"_You need this."_

(Never)

"_Im going to help you get better, Azula. But only if you let me."_

_(Never)_

Long drolling hours of torment. Eventually Her nights swept into day like satiny silk, rambled along, never stopping for anyone. Predictable in its routine and yet she couldn't see it. She could_ feel_ it (she could feel something besides anger and fear in this cell), just as the sun rose so did she and instinctually all firebender's. No matter how many _minutes_ she'd slept prior. She'd found before the dull ache of hunger drummed at her stomach that in the early moments of the morning, in the faraway chirp-croak of the frog-bird she had abstinence – could maintain this, control it, temperance_, power. _In those fleeting moments the spiders nestled in the hidden nannies cooed to her and the closing walls might have even been comforting. She had this to look forward too, she assured herself.

But in these sparse moments of sobriety, she might have preferred exile especially when her visitor hadn't come back. Her anonymous face she couldn't trust with important things but miniscule musings, blur of the moment lapses. (Because it didn't matter what they said? Because they held no power like the psychiatrist, or the guards? Because they were just another worthless face in the crowd? The only face in the crowd she could see?) But she supposed dereliction was inevitable, waved it off as if she was back to normal. As if monsters didn't open gaping jaws to release rancid, rotten, breath into her sully ebony lochs and taint and obscure her tunnel vision.

"You scared her off you know, she doesn't want to see you."

"Your only visitor."

The guards said.

_(I don't care)_

She liked to think she didn't, Azula liked to think she could get out of this situation if she really tried, if she had a moment where she wasn't drugged crooked, if there was a day – maybe two – of her being "awake" and not a couple of measly minutes or a hour tops. She liked to believe that she was the daughter of Sozin, she was destined to be great, to overcome oppression. She liked to believe that she had the will too. But it was only poorly conjured attempts to rebuild her standard. And she'd never set to even trying to escape. It was all fruitless now, futile to thrash and scream .The prodigy and her people had been built on the foundation of _amour-propre, _and though she'd struggled at first out of bravado it hardly seemed appropriate, maybe even degrading, to do so now. Especially over the amalgamating indistinguishable days and nights. Even in her medicated stupor she stumbled along, chains dragging, with a regal tilt of her head.

Sat dully as the doctor scribbled whatever on parchment, her lack of progress, maybe even .

Stood silent as the guards ridiculed her, prodded her.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

It was a cycle she liked, something she could predict. The flicker of a digit thoughtfully on chin as her Psychiatrist observed her, tried to get her to do something – anything – promised her petty little things if she complied (_if you talk Maybe I can get those chains loosened? Maybe you could have a some fire flakes?_).Followed by the smug smirk of the simpleton who dragged her along obediently (_Look where you are now? Pity. And no one has even come to visit you? Is this how you like it? – Peh_.) Try to trip her, or throw her in her cage, laugh – move on. She'd spend the remainder of the day in her silence, trying to figure out truth to hallucination. Maybe sometime around the night realize what sleep was, fall asleep, wake up with her head pounding and slurring, lucid until the guards noticed. They'd slip a straw between holes in her mask, she'd drink the whole cup – then eat.

Later, rinse, repeat.

But then, as the fire prodigy's head swam with withdrawal and awareness rising slowly (achingly almost) to set feet to ground and start it all over again – something was different.

_She_ was there.

Standing just hardly silhouetted by the sun pooling in through a far away window (fire wasn't allowed near her for good reason) Azula squinted, narrowing azure eyes to slit to scrutinized, might have played it off for a second as a guard – but immediately recognized the slumped, sloppy frame, the languid gait. Heart shaped face with ears sticking out goofily. Long knotted hair swinging and brushing across rim and collar-bone. Or where her collarbone would have been blatantly obvious before, actually.

It seemed Ty-lee was _busy _out there.

"You." She mumbled, coming out as a sopping slur of finality (_"wouu"),_ voice lax from lack of use. There was silence for a moment, Azula could here and register the –_drip splut splut _of a leaking wall nearby. _Huh, must've rained. _She pondered. Trying anything to keep her attention away from the awkward lengthy tensioned silence and pretending like she didn't even mind it. (When had she ever begun to think of these as awkward? Condensed? _When had she ever even cared what another had to say?)_

"Me."

Lather, rinse –

"Me."

Repeat.


	4. visiting hours

**Word count**: 1,054

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><p>If she was surprised, angry, or delighted – Ty lee was blissfully unaware. Maybe she was too taxed with weeks of being bedridden? Weeks of physical therapy and overwhelming amounts of moving, constantly moving, either way the bubbly girl was simply too tired to do anything but offer a thin fragile twist of lip, scratching a surface of her fear and doubt. Ty lee could never say she feared the fallen princess. As much as they'd traveled together, as much as she'd seen Azula's capabilities she'd never felt them firsthand. She'd brushed against the azure once or twice during training, narrowly avoided it– but Azula had never actually hurt her. She'd always dabbled it off as Ty lee being too valuable to injure (though that never stopped Azula from hounding her, honing her skills) always played on some sort of reason why it would be far more beneficial to keep the acrobat intact. She'd been flattered at first by this (she was a good fighter?) then she'd been touched (Azula likes me, she doesn't want me to be hurt) and she'd believed it whole-heartededly. Ty lee had never actually been hurt by the prodigy, not seriously anyway, and so she'd never truly feared the girl. Appreciated her talent, a little cautious of it, but feared her? No. She thought she'd never be capable of it. But Azula was capable of anything, wasn't she?<p>

Including Inspiring fear in her, who would have thought unintentionally? It was ironic enough to laugh about, one of those bubbling tragedies she saw on smutty festivals and plays. Something savagely comical about trying to coerce someone into something only to have them fall into your trap when you and them least expected it. It had taken Ty lee a whole two weeks of silence to laugh. Although if it was because of her misfortune, or Azula's. Who knew?

Ty lee watched the princess silently, running a soothing palm along the rising hackles at the back of her neck trying to think of something meaningful to say. Casual small talk.. well obviously it wasn't going to catch flame, especially not with Azula and Ty lee was almost too hesitant to start up a conversation.

But anything was better than this .. stare off.

Azula's golden gaze always made her uncomfortable, always watching – waiting for a slip up. She was like a shark turtle waiting for the right moment to strike. "How have you been sleeping Zula?" she questioned, switching foot to foot timidly.

No answer.

"How are you feeling today?"

Nothing.

Exasperated and probably a little impatient perky girl threw up her hands in defeat and inclined a fraction closer. "Are you just going to ignore me now then?"

And the princess fluidly moved into a well-practiced kata, her footing slightly off, hands not quite raised high enough to emit the flame she might have normally. They'd shackled her close for this reason, she took small steps (took her forever to get to places Ty lee thought) but nobody knew what Azula was capable of. And so nobody underestimated her. Especially not Ty lee.

"You're going to burn me?" She half sobbed, looking forlorn and defeated, sinking shoulders and taking a half step back. Normally the Kiyoshi warrior might have raised her palms, waved them like a demented monkey, took notice of the chi points – lunged for them. But not again. Not to Azula again.

So she just watched the princess slide a foot in a inkbrush arc, pull the hands back, take another half step and then in a breath release -

Nothing. A small spitfire maybe, coming to life but dying just as suddenly and violently.

Ty – lee managed to look something like a scorned dog, looking at Azula through long eyelashes pleadingly. "Im sorry, _Im sorry." _ She started, was interrupted by Azula's half snarl and lunge, grasping at the bars with pointed smooth fingers. Tightening her hold, wild eyes blazing. Ty lee reared backwards shook her head and tilted it accordingly trying to see, trying to understand. She was always trying to understand this _anger _building up in her friend. Always trying to understand her method of madness.

"Zula, I didn't know what to do okay? I was scared, I didn't want either of you hurt, I love you both so much you are my friends. My close friends and I just .. I didn't think. I didn't think Azula. I_ never_ think." Well, not until recently. Recently she'd been thinking a lot about things. About what she had done, on rather or not she had deserved to be burned, thrown into jail – about Zuko. About Mai. About if life was fair and rather or not she should tell Suki or one of the kiyoshi warriors about this sense of failure bubbling up inside. About how much she missed the Princess and her violent ring of protection. They'd say something was wrong with her, she was a masochist, she needed to be locked up and put away, she needed to see someone. But she had, Aang, and he'd been as clueless as she was. Only told her she was the loyalist person he'd perhaps ever met and the road to Azula's heart again would be a rough one. But she'd still wanted to try. Because of the love she had for her friends, because of her loyalty.

Ty lee reached forward with her less dominant hand and heard muffled and slurred -

"_Your arm."_

Stopped, gathered herself a bit and her thoughts. Ty lee offered Azula a soft familiar smile, perking the corners of her mouth and not quite reaching her eyes as she took a second to debate on telling the Princess about the horrible burn that traveled up it and onto the blunt of her shoulder.

"I was burned. Katara couldn't do much." She responded simply, not quite lying nor telling the truth. Even in her dementia Azula was probably as intuitive as she had always been. "It's slower, aches, stings, _and itches a lot_."

Ty lee waited for a response, hoping the Regent would perhaps dip into a plethora of things to talk about, like old times, she waited for a few minutes, a hour, would have kept waiting perhaps all night if it wasn't for the knocking on the door. A guard peeking his head in. "Your time is up."


End file.
